ARVALIS/IRTAC QUALITY ASSURANCE CHARTERS
A FRENCH STANDARD
to raise the profile
The new NF V30-001 standard,
“Cereals and maize - Good cropping
and on farm storage practices” has
just been published. The five
ARVALIS/IRTAC Quality Assurance
Charters for cereals and maize are
now combined in a single officially
approved standard. The aim is to
consolidate this quality initiative’s
status as a reference and to raise its
profile among actors involved in this
sector.
« The new standard will be easier to implement,
both for grain storage companies and farmers. »
Farmers who comply with
ARVALIS/IRTAC Quality Assurance
Charters commit themselves to
keeping crop records.
“From field to plate” Quality Charters
A
The ARVALIS/IRTAC Quality Assurance Charters provided the cereal sector with a solution to safety quality, nutritional and
sustainability concerns. They apply to bread wheat (bread, cakes), durum wheat (semolina, pasta), malting barley (beer),
sweetcorn (canned vegetable, pop-corn), and grain and forage maize (animal feed). The specifications include good cropping
practices: sowing, fertilisation, plant protection against diseases, weeds and pests, irrigation, harvest, drying and on-farm grain
storage. This scheme requires an annual inspection by the cooperative or trader company to check each registered farmer’s
practices. An audit must also be carried out by an independent inspection body. Those Quality Assurance Charters provide the
consumer with a quality guarantee, as well as traceability of the cereals from the field to the end product: 100% French
provenance of the grain with a transparent production process.
ARVALIS/IRTAC Quality Assurance Charters are turning over a
new leaf in 2016. Drawn up at the end of the 90s, they have
derived from French cereal and maize farmers’ will to acquire a
national quality assurance frame of reference that reconciled the
public’s, the manufacturers’ and the farmers’ expectations. They
define good practices for cereal and maize production and on-farm
storage (see insert).
This scheme has been supported for nearly 15 years by ARVALIS,
who leads the development and is responsible for the technical
formulation of those frames of reference, and by IRTAC (1), who
leads their implementation. They are reviewed every 4 years, and
there have now been 4 versions since their inception. They
currently boast nearly 8700 farmer participants through 44
cooperatives and traders. Over 290,000 hectares are complying
with them, spread out though most regions of France.
The farmers who subscribe to them through their grain storage
organisation (cooperative or trader), commit themselves to
implementing specific cropping techniques, to selecting practices
that favour safety quality and the environment, and to keeping crop
records. This frame of reference serves as a basis for the
specifications followed by many private businesses, as well as for
wheat, flour and bread quality assurance schemes (“Label Rouge”,
certification conformité produit, etc.). It also serves to advise the
different sectors of the agricultural industry.
Ongoing changes
In order for this tool to remain useful and to strengthen its role, it
was decided in conjunction with AFNOR (2), that the
ARVALIS/IRTAC Quality Assurance Charters should be
standardised. One of the advantages of this scheme is that it is
constantly evolving, taking technical innovations and societal
expectations into account. It aims to help manufacturers who need
to identify “sustainable cereal” suppliers in order to fulfil
expectations as regards their own corporate responsibility. A new
“V30D - Cereals - Good cropping practices” standardisation
commission was therefore created within AFNOR in October 2014,
at the joint request of FranceAgriMer, Intercéréales and ARVALIS.
The standardisation commission, chaired by ARVALIS, is
composed of around thirty members representing all the different
branches of the cereal sector. After only 16 months of work, the
French NF V30-001 standard was published last January.
It will be rolled out for the 2017 harvest and will take over from the
ARVALIS/IRTAC Quality Assurance Charters. The standard is, as
it were, the fifth version of this technical frame of reference. It will
be revised at least every 5 years. ARVALIS is currently supporting
all the cooperatives and agricultural traders involved, through the
transition from the Charters to this new standard. The “French
Agricultural Quality Assurance Charter” brand will still be used in
communications on this scheme.
In 2015, 8700 farmers complied with
the ARVALIS - Institut du végétal/IRTAC
Quality Assurance Charters.
The new standard will come
into effect at sowing time in
2016, for the 2017 harvest.
Recognition, simplification and flexibility
This technical frame of reference will stand out more than other
existing specifications. The standard consolidates its role as a
reference when establishing a quality assurance scheme. The
creation of the five ARVALIS/IRTAC Quality Assurance Charters
has been gradual since the beginning of the 2000s. The first one
focussed on bread wheat, then durum wheat, malting barley,
sweetcorn, and finally on grain maize/forage maize.
All the technical frames of reference are now regrouped under a
single standard, which is easier to implement, both for storage
companies and for farmers. The standard’s stipulations do not
mention the regulatory requirements that were included in the
Quality Assurance Charters, although some of its technical points
will actually be more stringent. It also spells the end of the prelisting and listing phases of farmers’ groups towards ARVALISInstitut du végétal. Grain storage organisations will be able to
implement the standard without any administrative support from
the Institute, by establishing a direct relationship, based on trust,
with their buyers. The paperwork associated with the
implementation of this standard will also be noticeably lighter.
Grain storage organisations who seek recognition for practices
traceability will still be able to use certification bodies. The fact that
its specifications are now public will strengthen its renown within
the agricultural sector, but also with the general public. “NF”
standards indeed benefit from a positive image and are recognised
by consumers.
An information pack on the standard will soon be made available to
all on ARVALIS’s website. It will provide users with all the
information they need regarding this scheme, its monitoring,
checks on farmers’ practices (auto-diagnosis, registration and
documentary evidence control grid, third party audit grid, etc.). The
2016 harvest will be the last time the cooperatives and traders
currently complying with the ARVALIS/IRTAC Quality Assurance
Charters for the 2015-2016 season will be listed under those.
ARVALIS will remain the main point of contact for grain storage
organisations and farmers concerning technical matters.
Producing cereals under a Quality
Assurance Charter provides buyers and
food brands with the guarantee of a
100% French product.
(1) IRTAC: information sharing platform bringing together the professional
organisations, the private businesses and the cooperatives of the cereal
sector. It includes farmers, seed producers, input manufacturers, storage
organisations, primary and secondary processing companies, technical
institutes and labs. IRTAC is now refocussing on the cereal safety quality
monitoring plan, which has evolved in order to meet the expectations of
the businesses involved. This monitoring plan has been named Hypérion,
Observatoire de la qualité sanitaire des céréales et des produits céréaliers
(cereal and cereal product safety quality monitoring centre) and IRTAC has
become Hypérion.
(2) Association Française de NORmalisation (French standardisation
association).
Camille Bienvenu - [email protected]
Stéphanie Weber - [email protected]
ARVALIS - Institut du vegetal
May 2016
Assessing technical and environmental performance
Since 2012, some of the grain storage organisations complying with the Quality
Assurance Charters have been calculating technical and environmental
performance indicators of fields under a Charter. Those indicators are calculated
using the SYSTERRE® computing tool created by ARVALIS: overall nitrogen
balance, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, treatment frequency index (TFI),
energy produced per parcel, etc. For the 2015 harvest, the grain from around
800 bread wheat and 500 malting barley fields stored by 17 different storage
organisations was analysed. This working group will remain in place as the
standard is rolled out, and will widen the types of parcels analysed to include
those under any sort of quality scheme.